Thursday, October 11, 2012

The Montenegrin army captures Detchitch Mountain, whatever that might be. Montenegro’s allies still haven’t declared war on Turkey, although there are reports of Bulgarian attacks on Ottoman border towns.

Turkey says it will grant reforms in Macedonia, the purported cause of the Balkan War, giving rise to protests by Turks who really want war, as evidenced by their chant “We want war!” One group of protesting students came across the minister of war, who replied to one such chant, “Nobody wants peace.” He’s got the right job, then.

In a speech in Duluth, Theodore Roosevelt quotes Woodrow Wilson’s old (1889) views on immigration. WW wrote in a magazine that immigration, especially from eastern and southern Europe, was changing the character of the Nation, so that “our own temperate blood, schooled to self-possession, and to the measured conduct of self-government, is receiving constant confusion and yearly experiencing a partial corruption of foreign blood.” I hate it when my blood gets confused, don’t you?

Master of his domain: William Sulzer, at the formal notification of his receiving the Democratic nomination for governor of New York: “‘William Sulzer never had a boss, and his only master is himself,’ said the Gubernatorial nominee, with a little more emphasis than some of those present thought the occasion called for.”

The Republicans have lost their last chance of getting President Taft’s electors on the California ballot. They had hoped that the acting governor (Gov. Johnson is out of the state campaigning as Roosevelt’s running mate) would call a special session of the Legislature for that purpose. He didn’t.

Disappointing Headline of the Day -100: “Flies to Save Drowning Man.” Not actual, you know, buzz buzz flies, but some dude with a hydroaeroplane flies it to a drowning man and drops a life preserver.